


Consumed

by JCMorrigan



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: (If you accept that Gwen lied about something), Also I couldn't pass up this tol/smol, Cannibalism, Canon Compliant, F/M, Mass Murder, Minimalistic, Montage of vignettes, One (1) line meant to be innuendo, Sad Ending, Tragedy, Villain romance, We were ROBBED of villain Gwen, Zeron Alpha is my son and I want him to find evil love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 10:07:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCMorrigan/pseuds/JCMorrigan
Summary: Gwen of Garbon commits cannibalism willingly on the daily in service of Morando. Her devouring of Zeron Alpha's heart was an accident.The romance of mercenaries on the wrong side of the war runs on borrowed time.





	Consumed

Stuart leaving Gwen has nothing to do with why she joined Morando.

It broke her heart. It left her weeping for days. It hurt her like it would hurt anyone. But it wasn’t the catalyst, and claiming it was is an insult to her.

She chose to pledge allegiance to Morando because she wanted power. Because she hungered for blood. Because she wanted to use all that strength she had. These are things Stuart would never have understood anyway, she comes to realize.

* * *

The Zeron Brotherhood is much the same way. Blood and money motivate them. They can never give Morando the sort of loyalty they give each other, but he can provide them with many pleasures.

They’re certain, all three of them, that no one in any galaxy can earn the same loyalty they give each other. Siblings by adoption, united by their lack of honor. Somehow gaining honor when it comes to each other.

They always let Alpha do all the talking. He’s the best at it and they know it.

* * *

A host of intergalactic mercenaries and soldiers assembles at Morando’s hidden base before the cataclysm begins. He outlines the strategies, the schemes that will allow him to pierce the defenses of House Tarron.

House Tarron has amassed so much power that everyone wants a piece of the pie, and everyone is convinced they can have it.

Morando explains how the linchpin of the plan is one Varvatos Vex, and as he shows a holographic image of the target, Gwen remarks that he looks good enough to eat. And oh, she means it.

Zeron Alpha laughs.

He and his kin are then assigned the mission of pushing Varvatos to the edge.

* * *

Before the grand assault on Akiridion-5, there are loose ends to tie up. Loyalties to win. Blood to spill.

Gwen has never felt more fulfilled than now, when she is using her immense body to shove and crush the bones of the Exeltrans who guard the necessary outpost. Such fragile creatures – but in the face of a Gorbon, what creature is not fragile?

She pretends some of them are Stuart, which is doubly satisfying.

The Zerons drag the transmissions decoder out of the tower, a serrator pressed to his neck to warn him that his survival depends on his compliance. Zeron Alpha has him in a headlock, dealing out threats and chuckling.

Then, briefly, he notes Gwen. And Gwen notes him.

Instinctively, she smiles, because he’s just acquired a critical piece of Morando’s puzzle. And she can’t see beneath his muzzle, but his eyes betray that he’s smiling, too, because of the carnage she’s left.

* * *

Omega likes to tease Alpha. Today, the subject is Gwen.

He brushes his sister off, vehemently denying that he has any attraction to the Garbon. After all, she is a Garbon. Omega keeps at it, cackling every now and then because she knows she’s hit upon a nerve her brother refuses to expose.

Beta says nothing. He just watches the show. It’s obvious whose side he is on.

Alpha means to shut the conversation down, but does so by telling Omega that it’s none of her business who he finds attractive, and this was either the worst thing to say or the best.

* * *

Finding an excuse to spend time together is awkward at first. They have jobs. They were brought together because of these jobs. If they don’t focus on these jobs, then Morando will attempt to have their heads (as if he could even attempt to incapacitate either).

When they aren’t working, they have no reason to be acting chummy. They are professional comrades and should keep up the appearance of such.

Lucky, then, that Gwen’s flirtatiousness is something she has built up as a personality tic. When she says that Zeron Alpha looks particularly delicious and she wouldn’t mind showing him around Gorbon, it could be interpreted as a joke.

When he takes her up on it, it could be interpreted as banter.

They are left realizing the consequence of their flippant words is that they are now obligated to steal some time away from the rest and see just how far this is going to go.

* * *

Alpha doesn’t mind that Gwen brings him to most of the places she used to visit with Stuart – bioluminescent forests beneath starry skies. He allows himself to enjoy this, sentimental and aesthetic as it is.

What don’t they talk about? Stuart. Beta and Omega. Bounties. Bloodshed. Garbon. Morando. House Tarron. It all finds its place in their casual repartee.

Still you could argue they are simply professional associates sharing a walk in the night to outline strategy.

You could argue that up until the point that they are sitting beneath the largest luminescent tree, Zeron Alpha leaning up against Gwen’s immense bulk and feeling surprisingly comforted by how much presence she has, how much of her there is to loom over him.

He had always thought he was deserving of nothing less than larger than life.

She cradles him closer with an arm, and he leans into it. Who is Stuart? This is better. This is infinitely better.

* * *

Missions done together, now. Alpha snipes down fleeing refugees as they filter out the gate of the next outpost. Those who escape think themselves safe until they find themselves in Gwen’s jaws.

Morando praises them for a job well done, thinking their chemistry to be something altogether different.

Omega won’t leave her brother alone, and Beta’s silence is hardly better. Alpha’s annoyance is playful. When Omega finds herself a partner, it will be his turn to crow.

* * *

In the night forest yet again, Alpha asks about Garbon mating customs, recalling an old doctrine that Garbons mate for life or are forced to devour their former partner.

(He won’t say it, but if she turns on him, he’s ready for the fight. It isn’t that he wants to harm her, but he is practical.)

Gwen laughs it off. They’re outdated customs. They make little sense. She flagrantly disobeys them – as it suits her. Not that she won’t cite the guidelines as an excuse to consume Stuart should she find him again.

(He won’t say it, but he’s immensely relieved.)

On the topic of cannibalism, she finds herself tempted to taste Alpha, a tongue licking up his back. He plays along, letting her mouth find the slightest of purchase – a limb, an ear that flicks straight upright – before dancing just out of her reach.

He survives the night, but she gets to know his flavors.

* * *

Akiridion Skelteg fighting. Fifty-creston minimum bet. Whoever loses, dies.

Alpha is used to this game. He’s never lost, thanks to creative combinations of steroids and cybernetic enhancements that go unnoticed on his Skeltegs.

To Gwen, this is newer. She insists upon fighting fair. Alpha trusts her.

They order a round of stiff drinks. Gwen’s Skelteg faces off against another patron of the dingy bar: a tall, lean fellow named Dronn.

Dronn’s Skelteg devours Gwen’s, and Alpha’s hand tenses on his weapon, prepared to defend.

Dronn’s last moments are spent sliding down Gwen’s throat.

Alpha remarks that this is not, perhaps, the definition of “fighting fair.” He’s practically lovestruck, leaning across the table on one elbow to admire her display of sore loss.

She gives him a playful pout, orders more drinks.

* * *

First, Beta and Omega fall.

Alpha grieves, but after the fact, he does not cry. He does not withdraw. He rages. He throws himself at the cause with even more fervor than before.

Yet he needs a shoulder to rage on. He calls Gwen. She listens to him rant and rave, heart breaking for siblings that were only ever hers by tangent.

She wishes death upon House Tarron. Call upon me if you need, she says.

Alpha insists this is his task to undertake alone. Besides, she has a reconnaissance mission to plot. That will take time, finesse.

She agrees.

* * *

Alpha falls. Gwen feels as though she’s the one who has been devoured.

It is now her turn to rage, and as she does so, she curses him out. If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so proud, he would have called her, and he wouldn’t be dead.

If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so proud, he wouldn’t have been Zeron Alpha, and she wouldn’t have cherished him.

She wonders: had he, could he love her as much as he had his pack? A question that goes unanswered and echoes off silence.

What she does now is for Morando, but more than that, it is for Alpha.

* * *

As promised, she cites the old Garbon code when she approaches Stuart, making up a name. Theodore of Terrotora. An accountant who isn’t afraid of commitment.

As she advances upon Stuart, ready to kill, she is indeed thinking of another love.

The scuffle is brief but intense. When Stuart retrieves the snorfing pot, she is transported momentarily back to another time, another place, when she was Gwendolyn but not this Gwendolyn, and it brings an unwanted, inappropriate smile.

It’s one of the reasons she gets the idea to cut her losses.

Still, she devours it, shattering it between molars. Because there is no looking back, only forward.

It’s occurred to her that since there’s been this much trouble over the assault, if she pretends to have been swayed, she can get away unnoticed, unscathed, cover intact. And she does. Her transmission to Morando goes without interception.

* * *

But Gwendolyn of Garbon is the only one, in the end, who gets away unnoticed, unscathed, cover intact.

Morando is dead. As is Tronos. As is almost every bounty hunter who worked in Morando’s employ. The Foo-Foos haven’t been wiped out – that’s impossible to do anyway – but they’ve changed sides because the money has.

There’s no point in trying to restart the uprising. They’ve been crushed. Gwendolyn would be too easy to arrest now, even kill, were she discovered stirring up trouble. She’s got to be normal now. Maybe get engaged to an actual accountant named Theodore. Strip away her battle armor for the first time in years.

Beneath the tall, swaying, glowing tree, one that she now realizes has a counterpart on Earth – though the bark of that one is defiled with initials carved by insensitive blades – she reflects on how it always ends with her and her broken heart. Perhaps it’s just the cycle. Perhaps Gwen was never meant to mate for life; something would always take her man away from her, be it fear or a rebel’s serrator. The third man will probably land her right back in this position.

She doesn’t want to consider a third man.

Instead, she thinks about the lithe agility of Zeron Alpha’s body, how he almost seemed to dance his way through combat, and she thinks about the dance Nancy Domzalski taught her: steps she still remembers but cannot execute without a partner.


End file.
